Finally. The end of Chapter 4...

Hi, peeps. I'm really bored right now. Does anyone else ever find life extremely boring? I think that quite a lot actually, especially when I'm at school. School is terrible. I go to Treasure Mountain, and the building is way too small for the amount of kids. It's so crowded. It's also really boring. I usually read through all my non-important classes. At least then I'm doing something I find interesting.

Image Courtesy of Stylipics
This is kinda what my baskets looked like.

So, I just got home from making Easter baskets. Don't ask why a Jewish girl was making Easter baskets. It was weird. I've never made Easter baskets before, so I had no idea what to put in them. I still have no idea. I just put random stuff in. There was a lot of candy, and I like candy, so I put a lot of that in my baskets. I also put some bubbles and stickers in, 'cause everyone loves those. Anyways, it was kinda fun. 

Where did I leave off last time? Oh, yeah. Shawn takes Anny and Maggie to the apartment they will be staying in. Maggie recognizes the room as the apartment she and Anny's dad had lived in before Anny's brother was born.

Mom wandered into one of the two side rooms. “One thing has changed,” I heard her say. I followed my mom into the room. It was a small bedroom. There was a bed pushed up against one wall, a closet and dresser along the opposite wall, and a small desk at the foot of the bed.

“We redid this room for Anny,” Shawn said. I looked from him to my mother, confused again. Mom answered her questioning look.

“This was Kyle’s room before we moved. It’s yours now.” Mom stood in the middle of the bedroom for a bit longer before walking out.

“I’ll get your stuff,” he said to me over his shoulder as he followed her. He came back a few seconds later, carrying my bag. “Right, now that you’re all settled, it’s time for your tour. Let’s go.” Shawn dropped the bag on my new bed and walked out again, not waiting for me to follow him. He must have realized that I wasn’t behind him, because he stuck his head back through the doorway. “You coming?” he asked me.

“Yeah, just give me a second,” I answered. I looked around the bedroom and

sighed. It actually wasn’t that different from my room at home. It was small, with a bed in

one corner and a dresser in another. The only important difference was that there was no balcony outside. There wasn’t even a window. What would I do when I couldn’t sleep? I would die if I couldn’t see the stars. I sighed again and followed Shawn into the main room, where he was talking to Mom.

“Ah, look who’s arrived,” he said, catching sight of me standing in the doorway to my room. “The tour. We’ll be off then. I assume you don’t need a tour of the place, Maggie?” he asked.

“No. I think I still know my around. I’ve only been gone for seventeen years, after I lived here for more than twenty.”

“Okay. See you later. Come on, Anny.” He left the room and I followed him into the hallway outside. He walked away down the hall without waiting for me, and I had to run to catch up. “So, what do you want to see first?” he asked me.

“All of it.”

Disneyland trip for school, anyone?

Guess what people? I just got back from Disneyland! I went there on a field trip for orchestra (that's right, I got to go to Disneyland for school). It was so much fun. We were there for two days. I did all the super fun roller coasters and not-so-fun kiddy rides. My favorite was California Screamin', the biggest roller coaster in the park. I did it twice. It was great.

The reason we went to Disneyland was for a Heritage Festival. We played and were judged Saturday morning. The award ceremony was Saturday night. We had to wait for 45 minutes just to be seated at that. It was worth the wait. We won four different awards! The first one was the gold in our division. To get that, we had to get a score of over 90/100. The second award was the Adjudicators award. We had to get a score higher than a 92/100 to get that. We were the only instrumental group to get that one. The third was the Outstanding Orchestra Award. That means that we got the highest score out of all the orchestra's there. Impressive, right? I'm not exactly sure what the fourth award was for, but it could get us an invitation to play at Carnegie Hall. Pretty cool, huh? It was really exciting.

As it turns out, winning the Heritage Festival wasn't my favorite part of the trip. On Friday afternoon, I met my cousins in the park. They live about 10 minutes away, so it was an easy trip for them. They are the cutest little people in the world. The boy is two years old. His name is Eli, and he is the sweetest, most good-natured two-year-old I have ever met. His sister, Ava, is four months old. She is so tiny and cute. That was the first time I'd met her. Meeting them and their parents in Disneyland was a lot of fun. We got to go on a few rides with them before we got dinner and they had to go.

Me holding laughing Ava

Me with Eli and Ava. Aren't they adorable?

Just so everyone know's, waking up at 3 in the morning, sitting on a bus for 14 hours, and then staying up till 11 at night playing cards is fun but not smart if you're going to be walking around Disneyland the next day. I was so tired by the end of the day. That combined with the 94 degree heat and the lack of open water rides was almost unbearable. But, I managed to pul through and still have a good time.

Are you guys jealous that I got to go to Disneyland for school? I know some people who are. It's too bad for you peeps. It was awesome!

Even more Chapter 4...

Hi peeps. Did everyone have a good week? I did, mostly. I had to go to school, though, and that was exhausting (like usual). I went snowboarding at Park City Mountain Resort with my parents today. It was really fun. We saw my grandma on the mountain. That was kinda weird, but cool. I have knee problems, and boarding always makes it worse, so my knees are in a lot of pain right now. Eh, it was worth it.
In the last part of my story, Anny and Maggie got to the IFPA compound. Anny was surprised to see that the compound was underneath her school. They met Shawn in front of the school. He took them into the compound.

We kept walking, down stairs and through hallways, past loud, running groups of children and calm walking adults, until we arrived at a hallway lined with doors on either side. Shawn stopped in front on a door about halfway down the hallway. He grinned at Mom. “Ready to see your new, or not so new, home?” He pushed the door open and and stood off to one side so Mom could see inside the room. She gasped, dropping her bag, and Shawn laughed.

“We’re staying here?” Mom asked, looking at him hopefully.

“Of course,” he answered, still laughing. “Go on, go inside. Nothing’s changed.”

Mom picked up her bag and walked slowly into the room. Shawn and I

followed. She set her bag down and looked around the room. To me, it looked like a

nice hotel room. The main room was a mix of a kitchen and a living room. There was a small dining table on one side of the room, and a couch and TV on the other side. In the middle of one of the walls was two closed doors. In the opposite wall was another door. I guessed that one of the doors led to a bathroom and the others to bedrooms. The room must have meant something to Mom, however, because she started laughing as she looked around.

“You’re right. It looks exactly the same as it did the day we left. I can’t believe no one’s moved in,” she said.

“This apartment will always be your’s, Maggie. You can come back any time,”

Shawn told her.

I was confused. It was obvious my mom had stayed in this apartment before, but when, and why?

“Um, you know this room, Mom?” I asked my mother.

“Oh, Anny. This is the apartment your father and I stayed in after we were married. We both worked here, so it was helpful that we could live here. We left when Kyle was born, and I never thought I would be back here.”